Picture the scene - you're hosting a New Year's Eve party for your friends and want to serve them something delicious to drink, something more original than the New Year's Eve classic known as 'all the Champagne'. The obvious answer here is, of course, cocktails. But you don't want to spend your whole evening mixing drinks, missing out on all the frivolities or, worse still, the countdown to the New Year! The solution? Get a world-famous bartender to do literally all of the work for you!

This is, in fact, entirely possible because the spectacular range of Mr. Lyan pre-bottled cocktails exists! Much like the drinks served in Ryan Chetiyawardana's White Lyan (crowned Best New International Cocktail Bar at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards 2014), these little rascals are ready to serve straight from your fridge, letting you ring in the new year in effortless style. Tasty, tasty style.

Right then folks. Time for another #MasterofCocktails! This week's involves setting things on fire, which is always fun.

We're going to be making a Christmassy twist on a Sazerac recipe using Balvenie 15yo Single Barrel and PX Sherry. If anyone feels like complaining about the fact that we're using a good single malt in a cocktail, can I suggest you jog on and complain to the Daily Mail - they'll probably have a story to print about it being responsible for immigration. Or something.

Well hello friends. I almost didn't see you there. Is it time for a drink? Seems a lot like it, doesn't it? Today we're making a sour recipe with an oft-maligned ingredient, Pisco. If you're not familiar with pisco (or worse, if you've only tried the really cheap stuff), it's worth getting to know.

It's in the brandy/grappa family, made in Peru (and Chile, which has caused quite a rivalry between the two nations - many thanks to @robbo_123 for this knowledge). We'll be using a perfect example of truly ace pisco - Payet Acholado.

The folks here at MoM Towers aren’t going to win the World Cup anytime soon. Our team, Bitter Bastards FC, are just a few players short of a full squad and therefore wouldn’t qualify, so the German team has nothing to be worried about… Yet. We’re also not going to win Wimbledon, despite a small subset of us being pretty gosh-darn good at squash (they’re basically the same sport, one just has more passive aggressive connotations and a wall). Oscars? Probably not. Grammys? Unlikely. Nobel Peace Prize? Doubtful at best. Medals for making stunning drinks? Now you’re talking!

That’s right, that little preamble is leading up to us proudly showing off the medals our products scooped up at the prestigious International Wine & Spirits Competition 2014. We’re always immensely excited and grateful when the products we make are commended by the highly knowledgeable tasters behind these awarding bodies - it really does mean the world to us.

I've done quite well at not boring "the crap out of you" about this "kickball tourney" as Ben suggested I would, haven't I? I've not done quite so well at keeping those who do have some interest "entertained" though. So, without going too far off the topic of drinks (I don't think...) I bring to you: The World Cup Final of Digestifs!!!

There is some logic to this, I promise.

Argentina, you see, have reached the World Cup final for the first time since Italia '90 (which is quite apt, as you'll see in a sec) so Sunday's match is going to be quite the event for La Albiceleste. And no Argentinian event is complete without fernet!

We've made it to Islay! In fact, we've been here since Thursday (quite keen) but it hasn't all been plain sailing. Alexandra and I actually missed our ferry, which, as every other one was fully booked for days, was a bit of a problem. Fortunately we managed to board another by using our powers of persuasion* and were soon running up and down the metal staircases on either side freeing hostages finding the very best views of Gigha, Northern Ireland, the Paps of Jura and, of course, Islay herself, including the silhouette of good ol' Cnoc Rhaonastil.

Without further ado though, welcome one and all to Tales From The Isle! Over the course of eight issues we'll be bringing you our own unique take on the events and releases at this year's Fèis Ìle, the legendary Islay whisky festival, as well as sharing some dark tales and perhaps even an adventure or two from this famous whisky isle...

Right then chaps – it's #MasterofCocktails time once again. This week we made another real classic – The Corpse Reviver No. 2.

It's yet another excellent recipe taken from The Savoy Cocktail Book – a superb compendium you all should own.

The Corpse Reviver No. 2 is also one of those drinks that manages to lives up to the awesome name it's been given. Unsurprisingly, it was originally a hair of the dog drink, with Craddock warning readers that "four of these taken in swift succession will unrevive the corpse again"! It can certainly be enjoyed at any time though. We've made a few substitutions here – most notably Pierre Ferrand Curaçao has been brought in on account of its yumminess.

This week's #MasterofCocktails is a bank holiday treat – Piña Coladas! Now, there are two reasonably important 'tricks' to this drink, well, one really...

The first trick is NO ICE. We're not using any in the preparation of this drink – instead we're using frozen pineapple. The second trick is to use an uber-ripe pineapple. All of the sweetness from this drink comes from the fruit. So, like I said – sort of one trick, but nevertheless.

We're also going to be weighing all the ingredients this time around, just for ease of reference.

Now – it's worth remembering that Mr Harry Craddock, the author of this book, would have had access to very different ingredients to the ones we have today. For that reason, I've (hopefully lovingly) changed a few of the quantities and in one case omitted an ingredient. I'll explain as we go.